“This Scenario is How I Have Lived For a Long Time”: OCD and Anxiety Sufferers Explain What It Feels Like to Go Through a Pandemic.

essica Okpere was too focused on getting better from her depression to notice the world around her. When coronavirus first hit the UK, she was still going out for the first two weeks before her relapse. When the national lockdown was announced, the feelings of fear and worry returned. She says: “I spent two whole months practically self-isolated because of depression, so I was like why am I going back into self-isolation?”

   As the government urges people to wash hands for 20 seconds every so often and stay inside due to the pandemic, some people have claimed to have developed OCD or anxiety. Anxious thoughts and fear about the future might be novel feelings for some, but Jessica Okpere, a university student, has lived with social anxiety and depression for three years now.

“This scenario is practically how I have lived for a long time, but the only difference is that life is literally paused,” she says. 

In 2017, an estimated 285 million people experienced an anxiety disorder, making it the most prevalent mental health disease. This number could increase as not only the virus is spreading across the globe, but also fear. 

For Okpere, coronavirus has been ‘a blessing and a curse’. With the cancellation of her exams, a big part of her stress was relieved. Her friends have also come to understand her condition better.

“Some of my friends have come to me and been like, ‘I can’t believe this was your life for so long’. The only difference with them is that they didn’t see it from the eyes as if life is just going on without you. That’s the only thing that they will never get to understand,” she says. 

However, she still worries about her future and it is difficult to not be able to see a therapist. “I depend on my therapist a lot and I can’t see her. I have to depend on phone calls and it is not the same feeling,” Okpere says. 

Maximilian Hawker, 32, has lived with OCD for half of his life. Ever since he was 14, images of causing harm to someone would come to his mind and made him quite obsessed. “It kinda hit me hard,” he says.

As his fear grew, he ultimately had to go to the psychologist to actually get a diagnosis.

Hawker is one of the 750,000 people in the UK suffering from OCD. According to an OCD UK report, it is estimated that 1.2% of the population are affected by the disease. However, the number could be bigger as some people remain undiagnosed.

 Hawker works in children’s social care. As the frontline worker, he is worried about the people he meets at his work.

“My only concern really which can affect my OCD and anxiety is the idea of inadvertently passing something onto a vulnerable child or a young adult who might be more at risk than me”, he says, “So it kinda feeds into the fear of doing harm which is one presentation of OCD. This is where all the hand washing comes down to, it’s not so much the fear for yourself, it’s the fear of what you might do to others.”

Olivia Bamber, from OCD Action, an NGO that provides support services for people with OCD, says: “Someone without OCD might worry they might contract the virus and then spread it. Someone with OCD will worry about that for hours, days, weeks on end and will perform mental and physical rituals in order to get rid of that worry. So they will go above and beyond of what we cross as normal.”

Bamber admits that there has been an increased amount of calls and people joining support group since the start of the lockdown.

“I guess for anyone with any type of OCD this could have an effect because people aren't able to leave the house, they’re isolated. They’re not able to attend their therapy sessions, and all of this could have quite a big impact,” she says. 

Dr Andrew Iles is a consultant psychiatrist who specializes in mental illnesses. In his press release, he explains: “One of the defining features of OCD is that there is a tendency to doubt the completion of a compulsive behaviour.  For example, if someone is affected by the fear that they have not locked the front door, they may have to check the door is locked again and again… Similarly, in the current coronavirus outbreak, people with OCD may find it difficult to stop washing after 20 seconds; the added risks around the virus may leave the person feeling compelled to wash for longer, or they may feel compelled to repeat the hand-washing cycle a specific number of times.” 

The number of times for hand-washing sometimes reaches 100 and Dr Iles warns that it will affect their skin’s ability to protect itself from infection and make hand-washing painful. 

Hawker points out that frequent hand-washing doesn’t make someone OCD. “What I have seen in the media around coronavirus and OCD is the number of people being ignorant and saying ‘now is the good time to have OCD because of hand-washing’ or ‘we’re all becoming quite OCD since we’re all washing our hands a lot.’ That’s not what OCD is,” he says.

In fact, only 16% of OCD patients suffer from some form of washing compulsion. 

Bamber adds: “OCD won’t go away when coronavirus goes away. To someone without OCD their anxiety will stop when the pandemic hopefully goes away. But OCD, that’s a mental health condition that will stay with them and it might just end up focusing on something else.”